Re: You learn something every day...

[Gene <gene.sullivan@gmail.com>]

On Friday, April 13, 2018 at 4:29:50 AM UTC-4, Loris Bennett wrote:

> Eli Zaretski  writes:
> 

>>> From: "Loris Bennett"
>>> Date: Fri, 13 Apr 2018 08:17:45 +0200
>>> 
>>> However, being a relative newbie, having only used Emacs since the late
>>> '80s, I have never come across the "Minibuf menu".  What's that?
>>
>> Assuming you didn't disable the menu bar, type "M-x" and look at the
>> menu bar: you will find a "Minibuf" item there.  Clicking it with the
>> mouse will show some minibuffer-related commands.

> (since I'm usually looking at the minibuffer at the bottom of the screen 
> while the "Minibuf" item is active at the top of the screen).

Which kinda sets one yearning to juxtapose BOTH side-by-side, one-over-the-other to facilitate noticing these two operationally related visuals, rather than having one's visual field divided by the WHOLE HEIGHT of the intervening buffer.

If I, for one, could have the minibuffer displayed at the TOP near the menu bar via a configuration option I WOULD.

It's annoying and time consuming to have to re-register one's focus back and forth from top to bottom.

How software engineers, developers, and users can manifest AWARENESS of the time wasted in removing one's hands from the keyboard -- to use a mouse or touch pad -- due to the time of re-acquiring finger positions on the keys BUT not extend this to visual re-acquisition when one is compelled to remove ones focus from something figural at the top XOR the bottom -- or NOT, having missed it entirely due to being too far out in the peripheries of one's visual field -- then having one's eyes having to make the return trip.

Hell, I don't think I'd mind having the mini-buffer appear atop the pull-down menu ... so long as the two could be juxtaposed side-by-side.
Optional socket-plug match-ups a bonus. (read supporting text below)

"Imagine ..." -- John Lennon

Imagine a minibuffer popping up beneath the menu bar.

Now imagine the ^ character being allowed in the character string one composes in the minibuffer.

Image this `^' character pointing to an item in the menu bar.

Imagine elisp code smart enough to make the correspondences between the pointed-to and referenced-from items and then `do something useful, informative, productive, or interesting'.



Just a few thoughts on Human-Computer interface design and visual ergonomics.

Cheers!